We’re moving! Our new home will feature a new virtual broadcast studio which will be built over the next few weeks.
It also means we had to disassemble my current one – check this timelapse to get a sense of the complexity involved!
by JimCarroll
We’re moving! Our new home will feature a new virtual broadcast studio which will be built over the next few weeks.
It also means we had to disassemble my current one – check this timelapse to get a sense of the complexity involved!
by JimCarroll
“Although your specific view for the future might change, your long-term vision should not!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
The specific view that we might currently have might change, but our long-term view or vision for the future shouldn’t waver. This is particularly true in the world of business today as volatility, uncertainty, and instability rage through our future. You’ve got to work hard to keep your vision intact!
Some personal context: on the left, the home office view for the last 29 1/2 years, On the right, the new view – it will start to come into focus as we begin the process of arranging furniture, stringing ethernet, and setting up infrastructure.
Although the views don’t seem comparable, they are quite incomparable. My home office, in which I wrote 39 books among other things, looked out onto our pool and an expansive yard in which our children played. The new view is currently lacking a pool, which will hopefully be installed next year, supply chains willing!
But it’s beyond the view that the view is exhilarating. Old view? Beyond the fence is a high school, lots of noisy teenagers, a basketball and sports court, and traffic! The new view! It’s a massive forest! I literally have an expansive, seemingly never-ending conservation area literally steps from our new home and office. I snapped off a quick picture last night while we were exploring.
My new neighbor has a salt lick. Somewhere in this massive thicket of trees, there wanders an unsuspecting family of deer, unaware that one day soon, they are likely to end up in a blog post about “daily inspiration.” And my mind boggles at the opportunity to use two of my studio soft-lights for a new Studio 2 ‘outdoor’ shot, set against the trees.
Opportunity is in the eye of the vision!
by JimCarroll
“Sometimes the change that is the hardest to face is the one that is needed the most!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
It’s moving day!
After 10,683 days – more than 29 1/2 years – Christa and I are moving today from our wonderful home and office to a new city west of here. It’s a big and complicated move, occurring within the surgical logistical precision at which my wife excels.
Emotionally, it’s a big step. My family jokes – with some accuracy – that while I preach a message of change on the stage, I myself struggle often with the idea. That is true from many perspectives – as with the concept of this move, which I fought for a time until I saw the infinite logic within the process.
Although just 75km (or 50 miles) west of here, it’s a big move. We’ve lived and worked (together) for most of our married life here; we welcomed our sons into our lives and raised them into young men; we built a strange and wonderful business as a global futurist and keynote speaker while writing some 39 books … we worked through five major renovations and countless minor ones to make it into our own space. When your home is your office for almost 30 years, you spend a LOT of time here.
And yet, it’s time to go.
My wife and I always said that we would eventually end up moving closer to where our sons might eventually locate. Our oldest, Willie, works as a drone pilot, and our youngest, Tom, works as an investment advisor/wealth manager, both within the area to which we are moving. (For my overseas and American friends, it’s called Guelph, Ontario, Canada). We figure they have mostly settled into the locale where they will continue to build their own lives with the love of their own lives, Laura and Kim. We know this could always change – and yet, we are comfortable with our decision. (They are too!)
The move comes at an opportune time. My wife and I are not yet old, but we aren’t yet young. She, being the wiser one in our marriage, knows that it is best to purge and downsize our lives when the timing is right – rather than when the wrong time might come about. We also have the opportunity to build new lives in a new, smaller community, forge new friendships, find new activities – and most important of all, nurture our lives and our loves with the close embrace of family.
Change is never easy.
Difficult change is always hard.
But change, in and of itself, is often the foundation for overwhelming joy!
Onwards!
by JimCarroll
“It’s not always just the vision that matters – it’s the ability to make it work that really counts!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
I live in awe of my wife of 32 years.
So there I was yesterday, rolling down the highway in my new Tesla Model 3 – a 21st-century hi-tech marvel that I like to call my spaceship – with a load full of freshly canned peaches. It was important to transfer them from our original home to our new home so that their careful process of ‘whatever’ would not be interrupted.
Here’s the thing – in the midst of a massively complicated move from our home of almost 32 years, which involves the coordination of a process that seems to involve a lot of military precision – she had somehow found the time a few weeks ago to purchase, peel and can several hundred of them.
My mind boggles, but here’s what I know – at the end of the day, organizational skill trumps everything else!
Someone can have all the futuristic views they might want, but without the deep, complex, and unique skill of making it work, it will never happen!
by JimCarroll
“When you rebuild it, they will come back!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
The studio has been deconstructed.
Somewhere in the next few crazy weeks, it will be rebuilt in a room opposite my new office in our new home.
The end result of what my clients will see will pretty much be the exact same – multiple camera angles, sophisticated virtual stage sets, virtual keynotes full of context-sensitive context. Behind the scenes, though, there will be a massive effort to recreate what I spent a few thousand hours during Covid-19 originally creating! The interesting thing, though, is that the infrastructure of the setup will be in far better shape – my 28-year-old drone pilot uber-organized hi-tech son will be helping to organize the wires and streamline the logic of the setup. I expect a Zen-like studio – there will be photos!
Why rebuild it when some people think that ‘virtual is over?’ Because at this moment in time, as Delta rages through the US, my prime speaking market, I have no idea as to when my in-person events will actually come back. I’m scheduled for several in November, but some of those are in current Covid hotspots. People are somewhat tired of virtual events, but the need for leadership and trends insight continues, and I continue to innovate with new delivery formats (‘short, sharp shocks!’), interview setups, pre-filmed talks, and more.
So while I might not know exactly where the world of virtual is going, I do know I am making great time. I believe that the investments I’ve made so far in building the world’s most sophisticated virtual keynote speaker broadcast studio in the world – a statement I can say with a straight face having seen what all my competitors are up to – will somehow pay off in this wonderfully glorious uncertain future.
Stay tuned!
by JimCarroll
“Every successful journey of reinvention starts with commitment and ends with enthusiasm!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
It’s a BIG day around here, and in fact, the start of a pretty epic week! Today we close on our new home in the city of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and begin the process of moving out of our home of 29 1/2 years in a suburb outside of Toronto. We’ll be at it through to next Monday – before the next steps of settling in continue.
It’s a pretty massive change – it’s the home where we’ve spent most of our married life, welcome our sons into our world and raised them into young men, and launched a crazy global business based on writing, speaking, and sharing insight. It’s a complicated move – it’s not just a home but an office, as well as a massively sophisticated virtual broadcast studio. More on that tomorrow.
What I’ve come to learn is that every successful journey involves a series of steps, woven together to tell the story of a tapestry of life. While there are massive mixed emotions in leaving a wonderful home that we created together, there is excitement and joy in the discovery and creation of a new home that is closer to family. Over the last few months, I’ve tried to work extra hard to focus more on my enthusiasm for the next step rather than dwell with melancholy on the moments of the past!
Oh, and one last thing – the map in the image comes from my Strava feed – one day, I decided to accelerate my enthusiasm for the journey by riding my bike from my current home to the new home!
It was a pretty epic ride – at least for me – since it’s mostly uphill, including a pretty significant climb up the Niagara Escarpment, followed by a series of never-ending rollers that are overall continuously uphill……
Let’s just say my pace was not entirely epic. My 26-year-old extremely fit youngest son met me 2/3 of the way into my journey and had a good laugh at the progress of my effort but provided me non-stop motivation to keep up the pace.
Here’s what I know about BIG change: always look forward, and act that way. Even undertaking this simple voyage was a part of my plan for fuelling up my enthusiasm for where I am going, rather than dwelling on where I have been!
Stay tuned!
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